News

Successful dialogue-day between CSOs and Governement in Mongolia

20/10/2015

On 15 October 2015, UPR Info and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mongolia, thanks to the support of the United Nations Country Team and the Open Society Forum, organised a Dialogue-Day among government representatives, UN agencies and CSOs to discuss the implementation phase of UPR recommendations.

The October meeting was the climax of a seven-month project that started in April 2015 with the Pre-sessions on Mongolia, continued in May 2015 in Ulaanbaatar with a workshop for CSOs and will continue in 2017 with the mid-term report of Mongolia.

It is the second workshop of this kind organised by UPR Info, after one implemented in Kenya in July 2015. More workshops will be organised, in particular in Armenia and Malawi.

The meeting aimed to create space for a cooperative dialogue between civil society organisations (CSOs) and Government representatives, a space to meet and discuss the way forward, and the possibility of securing partnerships to ensure an effective and inclusive process of implementation of UPR recommendations in Mongolia.

The UPR Info’s project took place over two days: on the first day, October 14, a workshop was held for CSOs to follow-up on the May meeting, where the implementation plan and indicators for UPR recommendations were discussed and updated, and where CSOs prepared to discuss with government representatives and present to them their implementation plan.

On the second day, a dialogue-day was organised for CSOs and Government representatives to discuss the way forward, including identifying the opportunities for cooperation on how to implement UPR recommendations on the ground. The dialogue-day started with opening remarks from the Vice-Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Open Society Forum and the United Nations Resident Coordinator. The opening remarks were followed by an introduction to the UPR mechanism and its best practices so that all stakeholders could be more aware of what they could gain through partnerships with all actors.

Overall, 33 civil society members and 38 Government representatives participated in the event. Several UN agencies such as UNDP, UNCHR and ILO were also present. This meeting is only the first step of a long-term cooperation among the different stakeholders for the implementation of UPR recommendations. Government representatives and CSOs were able to constructively discuss and agreed to continue working together; to meet at least once a year to discuss implementation of UPR recommendations; to work towards the creation of a coordinating committee that will focus on assessing the UPR implementation phase, which will act as a coordinating body for all the stakeholders. A press conference was also organised to present the outcomes of the seven months project in Mongolia.

Mongolia is exemplary in terms of cooperation among stakeholders. Now it is the time to actively engage in the implementation of UPR recommendations, and UPR Info will closely follow up with its partners in Mongolia and support all the actors in their activities.